


The Last Five Years

by RampantAnnarchy (combustspontaneously)



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Break Up, Fluff, Getting Together, M/M, Symbolism, The Last Five Years, lots of conflicting emotions, you dont have to know the movie/musical to read this
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-05-25
Updated: 2015-05-25
Packaged: 2018-04-01 02:48:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,424
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4002961
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/combustspontaneously/pseuds/RampantAnnarchy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Grantaire falls in love with a revolutionary on New Year's Eve. Five years in the future, a politician will have his heart broken by a failed artist with eyes like coffee stains.</p><p>Told in the style of 'The Last Five Years'.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Last Five Years

**Author's Note:**

> Hey! For those of you who aren't familiar with the movie/musical, Grantaire's parts will be told from the beginning of their relationship to the end, whereas Enjolras' will be from the end to the beginning. There will be four more chapters!
> 
> PS the chapter name is Latin for "great things come crashing down upon themselves."

**_December 31, 2009, Paris. Seven minutes and twenty three seconds ‘til midnight._ **

**_Grantaire_ **

The city is alive in a way it hasn’t been in a long time. There’s red lipstick smudged on the corner of his mouth and there are still streamers stuck in the curls of his hair. He’s sure he looks like a madman, but tonight he’s just one of the crowd. He lost Musichetta and Joly within five minutes of them getting to the plaza, and he’s virtually lost hope of every finding them again. The crowd is electric, pulsing with the thrill of anticipation, of the imminence of a new year. Really, it’s just another opportunity for huge masses of people to break promises with a new date on the calendar, but Grantaire plays along for the copious amounts of free booze. To his left, a man is spinning his red-haired lover, who totters along in break-neck high heels. She throws her head back in laughter, rich and bright above the commotion, and in the packed space, it falls onto Grantaire’s shoulder.

Her eyes glitter unapologetically up at him, a wide smile blooming. Her lipstick is smeared. Grantaire looks up and finds the rest of it on her boyfriend. He expects jealousy, but receives nothing of the kind.

“ _Ah, discúlpame_ ,” she says, and sounds utterly unrepetant, picking up her head only to twist around and tip her face towards Grantaire’s. Cigarette smoke follows. She speaks in Spanish, low and sultry and nearly imperceptible. With his limited knowledge of Spanish and body language he gets the gist rather quickly. He doesn’t really get the hype around New Year’s Eve. Invitations to threesomes are somewhat more straight-forward and a little more aligned with his beliefs and interests.

It’s a tempting offer, but not really what he’s looking for tonight.

He politely declines, and she shrugs as if to say, _what can you do_ , and the couple whirls away into the night, her laughter bubbling until it’s drowned away. The crowd is growing wild, restless, heaving and surging like the tide, and when Grantaire looks up, he sees why. One minute left of the year.

One minute of a year gone to waste. One minute to make something, anything of 2009. Well, Grantaire’s spent the last nineteen years of his life procrastinating to prepare for this moment.

Elbows are finding their way into his breathing space, and Grantaire seeks higher ground. He wrestles, jostles his way out of the heart of the crowd, and spots a raised platform mounted by a statue, barely visible above all the heads. He heaves himself up, and collapses onto his back, facing the giant clock counting down above them all as it ticks down to the 30 second mark. The crowd is one great surging mob, an amorphous being eclipsing any one individual.

He laughs under his breath, pushing his sweaty curls out of his eyes. Musichetta is right, he really needs to cut it. “Glad I got out of that.”

“I understand the feeling.”

Grantaire most decidedly does not scream and clutch at his heart at the warm breath at his ear. Or maybe he does. A little. He spins around, nearly toppling himself off the platform. His hands scrabble at the concrete and the world goes spinning. In the split second it takes to curse himself for dying on New Year’s of all terrible dates, hands fist in his t-shirt and pull him back to safety.

“Jesus fuck,” it all comes out in one big blasphemous huff, and is only partly due to his narrow escape from death. For one delirious moment, Grantaire wonders if the man before him is the statue come to life. He’s all high cheekbones, rosy and golden all at once, a Rennaisance painting on feet. He smirks and Grantaire’s stomach swoops out from beneath him. Judas.

“You’re welcome,” he says, and he speaks French like a native, like he has centuries of Parisian history entrenched in those two honey-soaked words, those blessed syllables.

Grantaire splutters.

“I wouldn’t have needed saving if you hadn’t all but pushed me off in the first place,” he protests and the man’s eyes crinkle.

“But I saved you nonetheless, no?” Grantaire rolls his eyes. Or at least he thinks he does. His heart is pounding so riotously in his chest he’s not entirely sure he has much control of his body at all. He takes this moment to realize the man’s hands are still fisted in his shirt, and Grantaire’s palms are pressed against his chest. Like the cover of a fucking erotic novel. “I’m glad I did,” he’s so close now, so close, so warm, so – “Has anyone ever told you you have the warmest eyes? I don’t imagine they’d look quite as nice splattered on the pavement.”

“That – that was the most convoluted pick-up line I’ve ever heard,” Grantaire manages, and the man laughs. There’s champagne on his breath, and his eyes are dancing.

Beneath them the city bursts into tumult. Air horns puncture the night, streamers fly, fireworks bursting above them.

“Happy New Year.”

Their noses brush and Grantaire can’t feel his hands.

“I – right, yeah,” is all he can manage before his hands are fisting in those blond curls, mouth warm and wet and willing. His heart stops then, which is fine, because he can’t think of any other way he’d like to die happy.

**_December 31, 2014, Paris. Seven minutes and twenty three seconds ‘til midnight._ **

“Grantaire,” he sounds like a broken man. It’s not far off. “Grantaire… please…”

R is sobbing openly. He’s sobbing and it’s all Enjolras’ fault. He could have stopped this. He should have. He would give anything to go back in time and – “I can’t do this anymore. I just, I can’t, okay?” His warm brown eyes beg Enjolras for something he refuses to give. They gleam wetly, catching at the moonlight drifting in through the window. “Please just, give me this okay? Let me have this, let me go with what _little_ remains of my dignity.”

“We – we can fix this,” he’s sure he’s never sounded so desperate, so shattered. He drags his hands across his face, and they come away wet. “Grantaire, let me fix this, don’t go. Please, don’t go. Grantaire…” _Grantaire, Grantaire, Grantaire, Grantaire no, Grantaire please…_

There’s a suitcase in his hands. He looks so small, standing there in front of him. Thin… when did he begin to lose so much weight? “Eponine is waiting.”

He grasps for something, anything to change his mind, and comes up short. “Where – where will you go? What about your things?”

“Eponine’s, until I can find some other place,” he’s shaking his head, and he laughs. “Enjolras – what things? Have you really not noticed? Everything I own – everything that is mine, all of that has been gone since we got here.”

With a start Enjolras notices for the first time that the stack of canvases and paint cans have disappeared from their corner of their (their?) flat. There are boxes and vases and pillows and mugs missing and the air has never seemed colder. The armchair in the corner is gone and Enjolras chokes on his own sobs. “When?” it comes out a croak and Enjolras is proud of himself, proud that he can manage anything comprehensive when his entire body is crumbling beneath him. “How – how long?”

“Weeks now,” Grantaire says and his voice is clear. Enjolras can hear the disgust in it now, where the grief had clouded it before. He’s stopped crying. He’s stopped looking at him. Enjolras can feel the broken shards of his heart puncturing his lungs. “Ever since… well. I didn’t want to distract you. From the race, I mean. You had so much to do.”

The race, the stupid – “Grantaire –.”

“Goodbye,” the note in his voice is final, if shaking. Enjolras can already feel the door shutting in his face even as Grantaire is opening it, hand on the doorknob. He stops then, looks up at the clock above the now-empty mantle. “Happy New Year,” there’s no cruelty in his voice, just a bone-deep weariness. Enjolras follows his gaze and sees the hand strike twelve. “I love you. I just… I have to love myself, too, now.”

Enjolras lets him leave. The door closes with a small click but it keeps ringing in his head. He weeps.

Later he will find divorce papers in the bedside table drawer, along with a silver band and the dried bloom of a poppy, the brilliant red bleached from its petals.

**Author's Note:**

> That was fun.
> 
> Visit me on my tumblr, punkrevolutionary, to yell at me or say hello!
> 
> This will be updated at least once a week until the end. 
> 
> Anna x.


End file.
